Poker is a card game in which players compete to make the best hand possible, using two personal cards and five community cards. It is played in various forms, but typically involves a dealer, a shuffled deck, and betting chips.

The basic structure of most games is that each player buys in by putting down a certain number of chips (usually called “buy-in”) to start the game. Each player can put more chips in during the game, but they cannot cash out their chips until the game is over.

Each round of the game begins with a dealer shuffling a pack of cards, then dealing them to each player one at a time. Some variants of poker allow the dealer to choose the order in which the players are dealt their cards.

After the initial deal, each player must bet an equal amount in each betting interval. At the end of each betting round, the pot is gathered into a central pot and each player’s bets are added together.

A straight is 5 cards that run consecutively in rank; a flush is any five cards from the same suit, and a full house includes 3 matching cards of one rank and 2 matching cards of another rank.

There are also three other types of hands in poker, called high cards, low cards, and nothing. A high card is a single rank; a low card is a double rank, and a nothing hand contains no cards in any rank.